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Franken's 'Truth': Politics can be serious business

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

Senator Al Franken?

He can do radio, but can he legislate? Al Franken is considering running for the U.S. Senate in 2008.

By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY

Franken, the liberal satirist, radio talk-show host and best-selling author, isn't joking — at least not all the time.

In the epilogue to his newest book, The Truth (with jokes), published today, Franken writes a letter to his grandchildren, dated 2015, reviewing how Democrats "took our country back." (Related excerpt:Read a preview of Truth)

The unnamed president is a Democrat. President Bush has been impeached, convicted and "began drinking again, all in the space of a single afternoon." And a Democratic senator from Minnesota is Al Franken.

"But you'll note that I didn't decide to run until 2007," he says. "That was very cleverly done."

Franken adds: "Also, I don't have any grandchildren yet."

Franken, who can be serious and silly at opposite ends of the same sentence, says he's seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate in 2008. He would run for the seat now held by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman. In February, Franken said he would pass on a Senate race in 2006 because the timing wasn't right.

At 54, he says his political future depends, in part, on Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-show network he helped start last year. But he is laying the political groundwork.

Early next year, he plans to move from New York back to Minnesota. (He left when he was 22.) He and his wife, Franni, have bought what she calls "a city home" in Minneapolis and what he calls a "town house." He concedes: "I'm not clear on the distinction."

He also is planning to transplant his daily three-hour radio program, The Al Franken Show, to Minneapolis. And he plans to devote a lot of time in 2006 to campaigning and fundraising for Democratic candidates in Minnesota.

The Truth (Dutton, $25.95) is Franken's most serious book, following Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.

The book deals with Bush's successful 2004 campaign ("based on fear, smears and queers," as Franken puts it). It also discusses what Franken considers the "seeds of the Republican collapse," sown in Iraq and in debates over Social Security and Terri Schiavo.

"In politics," he writes, "you can never turn the other cheek. Especially when you're fighting the Christian right."

He calls divorce, not gays, "the biggest threat to marriage." He also suggests a "three-strikes-you're-out rule" that would not allow Limbaugh to marry again.

He acknowledges that Limbaugh's radio audience is about 10 times larger than his: "He's been around longer. He's talented at what he does, but what he does is awful."

Franken will be a guest tonight on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a show he praises. He says Stewart "has wisely chosen not to have a dog in the fight" and doesn't let politics get in the way of a laugh.

Franken sees himself becoming more serious and says he's "trying to ramp down" his swearing. In The Truth, he mocks Vice President Cheney's use of an expletive, without repeating it.